Don't Speak
by NeverDust
Summary: Please. Don't let the magic go to waste, please, Dickon, come back to us. He was back, didn't she realize? He was right here and she was talking nonsense. Come back to me...


Title: Don't Speak  
Author: **junsui chikyuu**  
Fandom: Secret Garden  
Ship: Dickon/Mary, in a messed up way  
Rating: PG-13/T  
Warnings: I've only seen the '93 movie recently and the '89 one a very long time ago, so nah, no spoilers that I can see. But it's weird and un-beta'd and very rough. Oh, and it's depressing, of course.  
Word count: 2,216; 2,304 with the epilogue  
Disclaimer: I disclaim... er... yeah.  
A/N: yeah... I'm confused too. ::two thumbs up:: Wrote it with Septimus from Mrs. Dalloway and all those 'Dickon-and-Colin-go-to-WWI' fics out there, in mind. Constructive criticism yay!

When he finally, _finally_ returns home, he's greeted by their smiles, at first. Then tears when he cannot return them. He would like to. In his head, he is happy. To see him, to see her, well and fed and fully alive. He is happy to see the moor again, happy that everything seems to be just as he's left it.

But he will not move to touch it.

Lord Craven is a wonderful man, he thinks, and far too kind, as he takes Dickon in when it is clear that he cannot be cared for properly anywhere else. He sets him up in a room and hires a nurse to attend to him when no one else is around. He is embarrassed at, what he feels in unnecessary attention and feels confined when he'd much rather be outside or in his small cottage where he grew up. But he cannot argue, so he doesn't.  
The doctor who Lord Craven first sent for said there's nothing wrong with him. And silently, Dickon agrees and thinks distastefully on all the fuss caused in his name. But Lord Craven looks at him silently. He seems to be thinking that there are sometimes far greater miseries than those of the body. The mind is such a horrid place.

Day after day, Martha and Colin come to see him - Martha speaks to him in quivering tones and it is she who feeds him, dresses him, when she can, bathes him, rubs his extremities to make sure his muscles do not rot away inside him. She almost always leaves in tears. Colin comes as a pact of some sort it seems. He's always trying to rouse him somehow - speaking softly or harshly, depending on the day, depending on his own mood, depending on what he believes will work. He almost always ends up in a horrid tantrum throwing things across the room, ripping flowers from the garden (but never from _their_ garden of course) and bringing in animals from the moor to try and make him move, _just move_. But he won't and he stares vacantly at each scene before him, aware but not allowing them to know that he is aware.

Mary barely comes since the first month. It's as though she'd been the only one to understand that there was nothing to be done. That even her tears, the first ones she'd shed in a long time since she'd learned to cry could not make him come out. She's beautiful now, in the eyes of society, but he'd say he'd always thought she was beautiful, if he could. He misses her, when she's gone, he thinks, and even her sad, sad smile that she gives him is a ray of sunshine in this place.

She shows up haphazardly - sometimes a sunny morning, sometimes a rainy afternoon - almost always at night, when he hasn't seen her in a week or so. She climbs under his bed covers, quiet and shivering in the dark, and hugs him to her. He wants to push her away, tell her she should not be here, it isn't proper. But he can't so it goes on. She tells him secrets and speaks to him until she falls asleep or crawls away to her own bed again. And he's always a bit colder when she doesn't stay, even though she makes sure to pull the bed clothes up tight for him. Sometimes, she kisses his forehead goodnight and looks down at him, as though waiting for a response or perhaps memorizing his face. And she disappears like a shadow in the sun.

One day, his chair is brought outside, with the help of a few servants and Colin, who waves the servants away after they are safely out of doors. "Do you know where we're going Dickon?" he asked. Yes, Dickon thought. Colin said, "It was all Mary's idea really, and I feel like a complete fool to not have thought of it myself. The garden, Dickon; we'll go back to the garden and it will cure you just as it cured me."  
Dickon did not answer, of course, but thought that it was not possible. There was nothing to be cured, after all, because there was nothing wrong with him.

They met Mary there, outside the door. She stood in the sunlight, in all the glory and sweetness of her sixteenth year, with Dickon's crow alighting on her shoulder just as they came toward them. Mary set him upon Dickon's shoulder but the crow would not stay. Mary looked frightened for a moment and no one moved as the caws moved further away. But Dickon understood - the animals wanted love and movement and warmth and he could not give that to them now.

Mary turned and pushed herself forward, the door opening in a rush of ivy and rose petals. She beckoned Colin, her movements suggesting urgency. Colin obeyed, silently.

The first day in the garden was full of talk and chatter and "getting used to each other again" as Mary put it. Dickon did not complain.

The first day passed, with Colin and Mary realizing how very late it was and supposing they could stay out just a bit more, looking hopefully at Dickon. But eventually they conceded that it wouldn't be wise and the both of them decided that of course they hadn't expected anything to happen. It was far too soon! The magic needed time to work, just as it had on Mary and Colin. In due time, Colin said, sounding like the aristocrat he was, in due time. But it did not stop their initial look of disappointment as they cleared up the tools they'd been working with and pushed Dickon's chair slowly back toward the house.

This went on for many weeks, with every moment Colin and Mary could spare being spent with Dickon in the garden, whenever Martha would allow it. Eventually though, Colin lost his temper with him. He could see the young man becoming more and more agitated and Dickon became agitated at him for it because while he certainly appreciated the company he had not asked for any of this.

And so it happened that Colin stopped coming with them to the garden. But Mary still came every day, to speak to him in his room or traipse with him over the grounds. Dickon wasn't sure how he felt about this and saw the world around him as though through a glass bubble, completely aware but unable to touch.

One day, when in the garden, Mary stopped talking to him. In the middle of a sentence she closed her mouth hard and stared into his blank expression. She suddenly stood up as though in a rage, much like when she first came to the manor all those years ago. And with all her strength, she flipped him out of his chair.

Dickon lay on the ground and smelled the Earth about him. And did not move.  
"Get up." She said, as though speaking to Colin, the impertinent child. Then, "_Get up_!"  
It seemed as if the madness of her childhood had returned with vengeance. "_Get up! Get up! Get up, __**damn you, Dickon, get up!**_"

Dickon had never once heard her swear and was quite taken aback. If he could, he would have scolded her, told her it was not befitting for a lady to use such language. Instead he lay there with the earth below him and the flowers above him and did not move.

Mary screamed and sat him up roughly though it took all her strength and she ruined her dress in the effort. She was crying, he saw. She sat him on his knees and pulled his hands forward, shoving them into the dirt in front. Dickon thought he'd never felt anything more wonderful than the earth about his fingers again. She pushed and pulled his fingers, making them clench, to let him feel the earth slide through them.  
"Dickon, please." She was still crying. "Please. Don't let the magic go to waste, please, Dickon, come back to us." He was back, didn't she realize? He was right here and she was talking nonsense. "Come back to _me_," the last sentence almost a whisper, and Dickon knew then that he'd never loved her more, never loved anyone more than her in that moment.

His hands stayed clenched in hers in the earth of the garden. His eyes stayed unfocused, staring into the space of her face. And suddenly she jumped at him, her hands grabbing his face pulling him toward her and pushing her lips onto his. And Dickon's mind reeled with the certainty that he'd never felt anything so warm or so wonderful and that he'd never wanted anything more than to put his arms about her waist and stop her from crying and kiss her into eternity.

But if he moved, if he moved, if he spoke, if he flicked his eyes even the fraction of an inch, he knew as a certainty - the same certainty that he knew that a storm was coming or that winter was on its way - he knew that the world would break. The world would shatter and fall into a million pieces and explode and implode and be destroyed. So he must not move, must not think of moving, lest he unintentionally do so. If he didn't move, they could have forever. If he didn't move they'd live forever and the world would stay the same.

So his hands stayed limply at his sides. She pulled away from the kiss, her eyes red and bloodshot, and pulled his hand to her face, made him touch her cheek, smearing the dirt over her eyes and nose and muddying her pretty face into that of a earthen queen.  
"Dickon. Dickon. Dickon." She repeated his name like a mantra, like a spell, like the night they'd summoned Lord Craven back to Misselthwaite. "Is it not enough, Dickon?" Her voice became a deathly calm. "Is it not enough to have my first kiss?" She stood as though possessed and took a few steps back. "Is it not enough?" She screamed. "Take all of me, then! Take all of me!" She ripped the neck of her gown, the buttons scattering along the ground, the sound of tearing cloth scorching his ears as she ripped her undergarment down the middle. That almost made him move. If only she'd known maybe she would have been more drastic. But he didn't. Through the absolute shock and horror of what she'd done, through he feeling that he must, _must_ avert his eyes, he knew without a thought that he must protect her. More important than propriety was her safety. "Take all of me," she sobbed, "but please, please, come back." If only she truly understood that he was defending against the end of the world. If only she knew, she would not do this to him. Would not tempt him with kisses, would not frighten and horrify him with such displays of madness. If only she understood that he loved her and was protecting her, protecting everyone, protecting the garden, protecting the_magic_, she would not do this to him.

She lie down in the grass a bit away from him and cried for what seemed like hours until he thought the tears would never stop and the world would surely drown. When she finally lifted her head, the mud had dried and caked on her face. She looked at him with such bitterness, almost hatefully ("do not look at me that way, please", he thought) and somehow managed to move him back into his chair.

She did not say another word as she cleaned up and covered herself as best she could. When they reached the house Colin and Martha met her and both came running, horrified, frightened, afraid. Martha, taking in Dickon's own state of disarray, looked for a moment so very hopeful. But only his limp body and blank stare met her and she felt her heart break again as she took his chair from Mary so she could bring him into the house to be washed and fed and put to bed. "Mary, what's happened?" Colin asked, almost hysterical, as he threw his jacket over her shoulders, trying to usher her inside. She only stared at Dickon, unmoving, and Colin followed her gaze. "Did he do this?" He asked, torn between feeling hope that he had come back and anger at what he might have done. Mary just stared and said, "No, Colin." And then, "The Magic's died." She took her eyes away from him and walked away into the darkness of the house, letting the jacket drop from her shoulders into the grass below.

Dickon felt a panic rise up from deep within him. No, Mary, no, he wanted to cry. He wanted to tell her that the magic was there, it _was_ it was there and strong as ever and don't walk away like that, like she was never going to see him again. Please, don't make him want to reach for her when he couldn't, couldn't because he had to protect her.  
He didn't. "Can't you see what you're doing to her?" Colin asked, bitterly. Dickon watched helplessly as the darkness of the doorway swallowed her whole.

Epilogue:

When they're killed and he's alone, he decides he's going to make the world pay. Because isn't that just the thing? He'd been saving it for them despite himself and the world went and swallowed them anyway. Well, he'd show the world. Dickon used all his strength and suddenly, his fingers moved, like the rusted joints they were, but moved and he saw the world exploding and crumbling behind his eyelids. Because in reality nothing had happened.

And now he was free and the world was dead anyway.


End file.
